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Rosemont softball dome collapses; no injuries reported

Rosemont's indoor softball dome collapsed Sunday afternoon as a result of a fast-moving thunderstorm, officials said.

"The dome is down," said village spokesman Gary Mack. "Our public safety personnel believe it's directly attributable to the weather and there may have been a microburst even that took it down."

The plastic air-suspended covering came down after 2:40 p.m. at The Dome at the Ballpark, a 140,000-square-foot indoor sports venue west of the Tri-State Tollway and north of Balmoral Avenue. A group of people participating in a youth softball camp had left less than an hour before the roof covering collapsed, Mack said.

No injuries were reported.

It's unclear if the plastic covering itself was ripped or if there was a loss of pressure that led to its collapse. The covering stretches 565 feet in length by 250 feet in width and 75 feet in height. Inflated by high-powered fans, the dome is as high as seven stories.

Mayor Brad Stephens said Sunday night that the village's insurance company and representatives of Arizon, the manufacturer of the fabric part of the dome, will be on site Monday morning "to chart a plan for rebuilding the facility as soon as possible."

They will also try to preserve what they can from the facility, Stephens added.

The sports venue, which has two baseball/softball diamonds and is open year-round, opened in 2013.

Next door, the softball stadium where the Chicago Bandits play sustained some damage: the left field bullpen fence was bent, and lights on top of light poles were shattered, scattering glass onto the field.

Doug Meffley, the team's public address announcer, was in the press box getting ready for the Bandits' scheduled 3 p.m. game when the winds began kicking up and light poles began to sway back and forth.

The stadium's lightning detector went off, clearing the stands of fans who went downstairs to the concourse to take cover. For the next three minutes, hail and rain was coming in sideways, and visibility was limited to a couple feet, Meffley said.

There were no injuries at the stadium, and the game scheduled for Sunday afternoon was canceled.

"It's really a miracle when you see what happened to the dome," Meffley said.

Man killed at fest identified as 35-year-old Wood Dale resident

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